Admittedly Small Blast is iffy, and situational (i.e. it's mainly a big deal in cramped spaces) But ignoring Multi-Targeting penalties is plenty of an advantage there.

Just to be clear - what does small blast actually do? It doesn't seem to do anything by the rules, but I could very well be missing something.

Admittedly it seems to be pointless. It's an area attack that targets one person.

However, area attacks can target more than that if they are adjacent, or in a confined area:

"The GM should also alter the number of targetsaffected for specific circumstances. Adjacent orengaged characters are included with the originaltarget and don't count against the total. A horde ofgospog packed into a narrow hallway, for example,might mean three are adjacent to one another, andall hit by a Small Blast."

coyotegrey wrote:Just to be clear - what does small blast actually do? It doesn't seem to do anything by the rules, but I could very well be missing something.

Admittedly it seems to be pointless. It's an area attack that targets one person.However, area attacks can target more than that if they are adjacent, or in a confined area:

It seems to work against many-on-one melee enemies well. A frontline fighter holds multiple enemies in a melee(be careful for movement restrictions), and disengages - then BOOM! A small blast attack hits all the enemies!(Maybe some interaction attacks, like Maneuver, can herd enemies into one small blast radius, but I haven't seen any rule for that. On Player's Call, you won't have many suviving enemies to herd anyway.)

Mostly what it does, though, is sidestep the Firing into Melee concern by making sure you always hit your allies.

It seems to work against many-on-one melee enemies well. A frontline fighter holds multiple enemies in a melee(be careful for movement restrictions), and disengages - then BOOM! A small blast attack hits all the enemies!

I'm not sure that necessarily follows. Like, my post is adjacent to yours, but not adjacent to TorgHacker's, even though hers is also adjacent to yours. Three enemies attacking one PC have to all be adjacent to them, but not each other. So I think she'd have to stay there, and you center the blast on her. Still totally workable for certain builds, I guess, but I'm not sure those are the people I want to be regularly firing Small Blasts at...

Yeah I will admit that my group plays on a grid, Too many years of D&D and pathfinder at this point. We all like and are used to a grid and we all have minis an such we just like to put down. Blasts are the only fully cinematic and undefined mechanic they have. Everything else is fully listed, how many meters your character can move, what is short, medium, long range for any given gun etc. Our house rule is we used the number of targets hit table for the blast radius in meters and called it a day, its worked pretty well so far. Target a hex and a small blast goes 1 meter out from that hex, medium is 3 meters out and large is 5 meters out. Once you see it on a hex grid medium and large blasts are pretty huge.

Sides I have TUBS of the old prepainted D&D plastic minis which have almost all the classic foes in quantity and its just cooler of have a bunch of minis on the table in my opinion. Helps with the emersion and allows me and the other players to really visualize whats going on and devise cool tactics and such.

Sunrunner wrote:Yeah I will admit that my group plays on a grid, Too many years of D&D and pathfinder at this point. We all like and are used to a grid and we all have minis an such we just like to put down. Blasts are the only fully cinematic and undefined mechanic they have. Everything else is fully listed, how many meters your character can move, what is short, medium, long range for any given gun etc. Our house rule is we used the number of targets hit table for the blast radius in meters and called it a day, its worked pretty well so far. Target a hex and a small blast goes 1 meter out from that hex, medium is 3 meters out and large is 5 meters out. Once you see it on a hex grid medium and large blasts are pretty huge.

Sides I have TUBS of the old prepainted D&D plastic minis which have almost all the classic foes in quantity and its just cooler of have a bunch of minis on the table in my opinion. Helps with the emersion and allows me and the other players to really visualize whats going on and devise cool tactics and such.

I do the same, but my squares are 2m, but the result is the same. Pick a target square and the blast goes out 1 square, 3 squares, 5 squares, etc. All targets are hit friends/foes, unless stated otherwise. Last night our Tharkold psychic confused about 7 enemies, himself and an ally in his large blast.